One of the reasons I picked Microsoft to work for was that I felt the company had a goal stronger than "to make money for the shareholders", but also to actually do some good in the world.

Bill Gates has announced that he is planning to slowly transisition to a part time role in Microsoft over the next two years to dedicate his time to the Bill and Melinda Foundation who have already given away billions to help those in need. (See http://www.gatesfoundation.com/AboutUs/Announcements/Announce-060615.htm for Bill's transition. For some astounding stats, look at http://www.gatesfoundation.com/MediaCenter/FactSheet/ - snipped from it:

Number of employees: 241
Endowment: $29.2 billion
Total grant commitments since inception: $10.5 billion
Total 2005 grant payments: $1.36 billion

Illustrative Grant Commitments

• United Negro College Fund, Gates Millennium Scholars Program  - $1 billion
  
• The GAVI Alliance - $1.5 billion
  
• Malaria Vaccine Initiative - $258 million
  
• Save the Children, Saving Newborn Lives - $110 million
  
• United Way of King County, Seattle, WA, - $55 million
  
• Knowledgeworks Foundation - $20 million
  
• National Council of Culture & Arts, Mexico Library Project - $11.7 million
  
• Public Access Computing Hardware Upgrade Program, Multiple library systems - $5.3 million
  

Now I read that Warren Buffet is to give away 85% of his 40B$ wealth to charity, with 5/6 going to the above fund.  For more info, see http://www.gatesfoundation.com/AboutUs/Announcements/Announce-060625.htm

This is what I want to help others do, while Microsoft makes lots of donations, by making MS successful, I enable these people to continue to do this.  I think Microsoft donates something like 7% of its cash each year to good causes - not many other companies can say they do that.  When working recently with the SBS product team in the UK I discovered that we give away 4+ copies of SBS plus associated software to UK needy causes a month.  That is just SBS, we also give away many other products too.  I know that the nay sayers could say "why not give away more" and this is in the pipeline, but for now, i am glad I work for a company that at least tries to do this - the 1st in my career and some of those companies were pretty rich too.

ttfn

David